Boyd, D and Taft, A (2016) Identifying the complex information requirements of sustainable drainage systems. In: Chan, P W and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 32nd Annual ARCOM Conference, 5-7 September 2016, Manchester, UK.
Abstract
The management of water both for supply and removal is a growing concern of society. The primary purpose of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) is to address the flow and volume of run-off from impermeable surfaces that are formed in the development of the built environment. SuDS involves a number of methods to store run off and release it in a controlled manner and to permit infiltration into the ground. This is often achieved through a 'management train' involving a number of methods arranged in a series and a number of landscape features such as basins, swales, permeable paving, grass filter strips, gravel strips and soil infiltration. Designing these effectively produces many benefits other than water removal including groundwater recharge, water resource, landscape enhancement and biodiversity. However, this requires addressing multiple objectives which make the problem extremely complex and involve the support of many disciplines and stakeholders. It has been proposed that infrastructure information modelling will make the design and management of SuDS easier and more robust. The current adoption of information perspective on SuDS is software led and simplifies the problems to landscape design and hydrology which fails to address the complex requirements and multiple objectives of SuDS. This paper seeks to identify the multiple and complex information requirements in the design and management of SuDS through a comprehensive literature review. It considers the different stakeholders and their particular information needs. It will show that each discipline has its own model and evaluative system which uses information differently and generates different interpretations. These differences are not acknowledged in current infrastructure information modelling which seek to automate the process in a single comprehensive model. The paper concludes that new forms of models need to be created based on these different information perspectives and which allow a more interactive design between stakeholders.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | multiple models; complexity; decision making; stakeholders |
| Index terms: | literature review, water resource, groundwater, information modelling, infiltration, biodiversity, paving, society, drainage, hydrology, complexity, decision-making, landscape design, built environment |
| Subjects: | data analysis and analytics, environmental science, systems engineering, environmental engineering, transportation engineering, infrastructure and transport systems, communities and social development, decision analysis, digital design, water management, biodiversity, design practice |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Urban Studies, Digital Applications, Sustainability, Stakeholder Management, Risk Management, Research Practice, Engineering Principles |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here